If you are new to BigData concepts you can start with this1. http://www.ibm.com/bigdata - Quick introduction to Big Data. Reading time - 5 minutes2. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/enterprise.html - Give you an overview of the two products in IBM Big Data - InfoSphere Streams and InfoSphere BigInsights - Reading time 10 minutes 3. http://bigdatauniversity.com - This contains an excellent Certification Course for Hadoop Fundamentals - and has a good coverage on the open source foundational components such as Hadoop, MapReduce concepts, Pig, Hive, Flume JAQL etc. There are videos, hands-on downloadable VM, lab exercises, reading material etc. The bible of Hadoop and MapReduce reference pdf book is available for download. If your expertise so far has been one line summary of each of the technolgies mentioned above, you will need to spend about 3 to 4 days to cover this course, reading time + exercises. There's a test that you can appear for at the end of the course and yes, you get a certificate if you clear it. Reading up and clearing certification time 4 to 5 days